Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:42:30.185Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Distribution of Tenant Agriculture: Ontario, Canada, 1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

William L. Marr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Economic Historians in the United States have begun to take up the study of tenant agriculture in that country from the perspective first of describing the characteristics of tenant farmers and their contracts, and second, of explaining the changes in tenancy over time and the spatial distribution of tenant farms at one specific point in time (e.g., Reid, 1973, 1976, 1979; Alston, 1981; Alston & Higgs, 1982; and Higgs, 1973).

This effort continues the work of earlier generations of historians and agricultural economists. In contrast, almost nothing has been done on tenant farming in Canada even though in Ontario in 1871 about 16% of all farms were tenant occupied with some census districts such as York having approximately 30% of their farms in the control of tenants (Canada, 1870-1871). For example R. L. Jones’s book (1946), which represents the most thorough study of Ontario’s agriculture before the 1880s, contains almost no reference to tenant agriculture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1987 , pp. 169 - 186
Copyright
copyright © Social Science History Association 1987 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alston, L. J. (1981) “Tenure choice in southern agriculture, 1930-1960.” Explorations in Economic History 18: 211–232.Google Scholar
Alston, L. J. and Higgs, R. (1982) “Contractual mix in southern agriculture since the civil war: facts, hypotheses, and tests.” The Journal of Economic History 42: 327–354.Google Scholar
Bateman, F. (1968) “Improvement in American dairy farming, 1850–1910: a quantitative analysis.” Journal of Economic History 28: 255–273.Google Scholar
Bateman, F. (1969) “Labor inputs and productivity in American dairy agriculture, 1850-1910.” Journal of Economic History 29: 206–229.Google Scholar
Black, J. D. and Allen, R. H. (1937) “The growth of farm tenancy in the United States.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 51: 393–425.Google Scholar
Black, J. D. (1950) The Rural Economy of New England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bogue, A. G. (1963) From Prairie to Corn Belt. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bogue, M. B. (1959) Patterns from the Sod. Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library.Google Scholar
Canada, Department of Agriculture. Census of Canada, 1870-1871. Ottawa.Google Scholar
Cheung, S. N. S. (1969) “Transaction costs, risk aversion, and the choice of contractual arrangements.” The Journal of Law and Economics 12: 23–42.Google Scholar
Gates, L. F. (1968) Land Policies of Upper Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Gates, P. W. (1939) “Land policy and tenancy in the prairie counties of Indiana.” Indiana Magazine of History 35: 1–26.Google Scholar
Gates, P. W. (1973) Landlords and Tenants on the Prairie Frontier. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Higgs, R. (1973) “Race, tenure, and resource allocation in southern agriculture, 1910.” Journal of Economic History 33: 149–169.Google Scholar
Higgs, R. (1974) “Patterns of farm rental in the Georgia cotton belt, 1880-1900.” Journal of Economic History 34: 468–482.Google Scholar
Jones, R. L. (1946) History of Agriculture in Ontario, 1613-1880. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Reid, J. D. (1973) “Sharecropping as an understandable market response: the post-bellum South.” The Journal of Economic History 33: 106–130.Google Scholar
Reid, J. D. (1976) “Sharecropping and agricultural uncertainty.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 24: 549–576.Google Scholar
Reid, J. D. (1979) “White land, black labor, and agricultural stagnation.” Explora tions in Economic History 16: 31–55.Google Scholar
Spillman, W. J. (1919) “The agricultural ladder,” American Economic Review Proceedings 9: 170–179.Google Scholar
Winters, D. L. (1974) “Tenant farming in Iowa, 1860–1900: a study of the terms of rental leases.” Agricultural History 48: 130–150.Google Scholar
Winters, D. L. (1975) Farmers Without Farms. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar